By W. Frank Moore (Independent, March 18, 1920)
When we first saw Carrington and its surroundings there was not much to call surroundings. Apparently the surroundings had tired of the location and tried to steal away in the night. Day light came too soon and only a trace of surroundings remained, and space rushing in to fill the vacancy, cooled quickly, stopped too soon, leaving much emptiness in and about the town. The few buildings on either side of main street were quite distant to each other. The dwellings were promiscuously scattered about and seemed to have just dropped and stuck there in defiance of the wind.
Within a few minutes after our arrival, having counted all the buildings in town, we began to make astronomical observations and duly observed in all directions the sky dropped into curtain to earth just the same distance from the town and in looking up noticed that we were exactly under the center of the sky. Was this a coincidence? We took a five minute walk, the ancient fire guard was our boulevard and we were impressed with the startling fact that a dozen or more roads (the natives called them trails) came from everywhere in the distance and from all directions, as the spokes of a wheel come to the hub. This was indeed significant and adding the former observations it dawned upon us that the town was to have a great future. Well, it is headed that way and going some.
Passing around the suburbs that sense of emptiness seemed to oppress us. Save a few small buildings without affinity for each other, there was little. We wanted to put a fence about the space, even the air seemed far away. We felt miles from earth there is something real. We felt one would probably feel a thousand miles from earth- there is nothing here but me, and I am very small, too small to rattle.
Well do I remember my strange feelings on going southwest into the hills and finding myself alone for the first time beyond cultivated fields, buildings, human voice, or any evidence of habitation. There was only the sky above and the earth beneath. It was solitude, but not unpleasant, just strange. These must be feelings of men who have been permitted to wander far and know that no human being has even trod where they are, and no human eye has ever before seen the wondrous things spread before them.
Stop, here is something- a trail running over and thru the hills. How friendly it seemed to be. We had not parted from it many hours, but it seemed a long time and its presence soothing to our feelings, as we decided to follow along with it, just for old time's sake. But this is different from any trail before seen. It is cut deep into the soil, the new settlement beyond is too young to have worn the paths so deep. When and how were they so deep? There was but one answer, Indians, for perhaps a thousand years had traveled that trail and we were alone. Quickly we scanned the top of every hill, looking for a painted red man, but there was none. We tried to recall our history as to the exact time the last Indian massacre took place, as we made quick time on the back trail, never stopping until we saw in the valley below a small homesteader's shack, in the far distance and it seemed so friendly much larger than the one we passed on the way out. It and all its neighbors beyond seemed to stand nearer than before- stood for protection to use, if needed."
Source: A History of Foster County 1983 Page 50